August 12th, 2009 |
11:33 PM

Cassie's favorite word is COOKIE. (It's one of my favorites too.) For Cassie a cookie is any kind of a treat that isn't her regular kibble. There's a Cassie cookie jar in the kitchen and another one in my office. If I want to get her to move, to go anywhere, all I have to do is ask her if she wants a cookie and she pops up right away. When company comes over and I want to put her through her tricks, I reach for the cookie jar.

It's nice having a food motivated dog. It makes training her a lot easier.

But not all cookies are created equal. Asking her to stay for five minutes at home with no distractions is easy peasy and worth a regular cookie. Asking her to stay for two minutes at the park with all sorts of activity going on around here, well that gets a better treat. The higher the level of distractions for her the better the treat has to be. (And usually the stinkier too.)

I am in awe of dogs who can be put in a down stay and stay there for what feels like forever. I'm up to about five minutes with Cassie in a zero distraction zone and with me out of her sight but it is never consistent. At least not yet.

Yesterday I worked in my office for five hours. It was a big deal to me, moving from the uncomfortable yet comforting place on the couch to the comfortable place in my office. I was productive (even with the window guy here all day) and I felt a little more professional working in my, well, work environment. It felt so good that I berated myself for not doing it sooner.

I'd like to say I got up this morning and went straight into my office and worked there all day but I can't. For some reason I never made it back in there today. I'm going to try again tomorrow and shoot for just an hour. If I don't expect Cassie to do a long down stay right off the bat I shouldn't expect it out of myself either. I'll build up in increments just like I am doing with her.

Anyone have a cookie? Chocolate chips are especially high value for me.

Who am I?I was born on the Cancer/Leo cusp and share a birthday with Ernest Hemingway and Robin Williams. The similarities don't stop there as I can go from depressed to ecstatic without ever passing go. I feel scared most of the time though my friends call me brave and I find it easier to believe in my friends than to believe in my own abilities to make what I want out of my life.

Who am I? A wife, a mother, a daughter, and even, gulp, a grandmother.

Who am I? A writer who never gets tired of playing with words, even when the words are hard to find. A writer of books for children and articles for grown-ups and many things in-between.

"Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing. They are the ones who discover what is most important and strangest and most pleasurable in themselves, and keep believing in the value of their work, despite the difficulties."
--Bonnie Friedman

"As writers, we must be willing to feel our sadness, our anger, our terror, so we can reach in and find our sweet vulnerability that is just sitting there waiting for us to come back home."
--Nancy Slonim Aronie

"Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost my faith as a Catholic. When I'm writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is."
--Anne Rice